Layout of the text is a special process of forming pages of the publication using the organic arrangement of all graphic and text elements. It is used in the publication of mass media, magazines, books, and any printing products. What is this process, we will examine in detail in this article.
Story
Text layout has become very popular in the era of metal typing. At that time, it consisted in picking text strings, which had to be typed exclusively by hand, but could do this using a monotype or linotype. Illustrated cliches also appeared, the lining of these elements was carried out using rulers and white space materials.
When digital technologies began to develop, text layout began to be made on computers, specialized programs appeared. The most popular of them, which are used by most professionals today, are AdobePageMaker, Adobe InDesign, Ventura Publishe, CorelDraw, Adobe FrameMaker, Microsoft Publisher. At the same time, the Word book is also suitable for the simplest typesetting of text, although it is mainly a text editor.
Types of layout
There are several types of layout. First of all, they differ in the types of publications in which it is used. Firstly, there is a book-magazine layout, which is almost completely identical to the rules and principles of text layout by a book. At the same time, there are special peculiar techniques that are used mainly when working on illustrated magazines.
Significantly different from the book and magazine typesetting of text for newspapers. For these media other principles of the arrangement of illustrations and text are inherent, while the rules of hyphenation are as free as possible.
There is also the concept of display layout, which is used for printing products of small size. These are flyers, posters, advertisements, forms.
Requirements for book and magazine publications
There are very strict rules for typesetting the text, which must be observed so that the customer quickly and without delay accepted the work. It is important that the laid-out strips are made exactly in size, and both in height and in width, there should be no "struts" or distortions. Greetness and uniformity of layout are welcome.
That is, publication strips should be made up in the same style, have the same elements. Headings, subheadings, notes, footnotes, captions to photographs and drawings should be of the same type; illustrations of the same type should be equally composed.
It is also worthwhile to deal with the concept of "layout imposition." So they call the absolute coincidence of the sizes of the odd and even bands, as well as the way to combine the lines of the main text with each other on these bands.
Reduction is achieved by reducing all parts of the text, without exception, to an integer number of lines of the main size. For this, beats are applied from below and above.
Organization Creation and Text Layout
For these processes, the so-called desktop publishing systems, which are understood as computer digital printing, are needed. And to be more specific, programs for typesetting documents. Typing and typesetting of text is most conveniently carried out using specialized software that is specifically designed to prepare publications consisting of text and images for printing.
Similar programs also prepare documents for publication and distribution in electronic form. As a rule, these are html or pdf formats. An important difference between a desktop publishing house and a classic printing house is that it is designed specifically for work in the office or at home, and not for large printing houses.
Recently, the number of electronic network and multimedia publications is large, and desktop publishing systems are divided into layout systems for electronic documents and systems for the preparation of printing products.
With the help of the latter, you can master the creation and methods of typesetting the text without making any special effort to this. The key difference between text editors and desktop publishing systems is that they are intended for the layout of the document, and not for its creation, which may include typing, spelling and image creation. Although they can support these features.
Text layout software
Let us dwell in more detail on the programs that are used for layout. For clarity, we will analyze some of the most popular.
Adobe PageMaker is the very first desktop publishing system to be released back in 1985. The application was based on a graphical user interface. The developers regularly improved the program, for example, in the seventh version the ability to support printing of variable data was added, the possibilities for exporting and importing Microsoft Office files were expanded, and a module for importing PDF files appeared.
At the same time, in 2004 it was officially announced that the development of PageMaker was being completed, but the company would continue to produce and sell its product. The successor was the program Adobe InDesign. This is a more advanced layout program, which allows you to create documents for their output on printing machines of industrial scale, and if desired, on the simplest custom printers. Created documents could be exported to various formats of electronic publications.
An important advantage was that the developers actually refused to change the basic functions in later versions, the interface remained the same, this allowed us to get used to the consequences of updates faster.
Another program for working on typesetting is CorelDRAW. This is a graphical editor that runs on the Microsoft Windows platform. The capabilities of this product are much wider than those listed previously. The main difference is that this is not only a text layout program, but also a raster graphics editor with the ability to capture images and other functions.
Fundamental rules
It is necessary when working on any printing products to comply with the basic rules of text layout. The fundamental fact is that the strips of each individual publication should be the same in height, that is, contain exactly the same number of lines. When typesetting illustrations or some additional fragments, for example, formulas or tables, you must carefully calculate how many complete lines will need to be removed to make up these parts on the strip.
Also, when typesetting text with a book, it is necessary to maintain the rectangularity of the stripes. Each line should not begin with an incomplete end line of a paragraph and should not end with an initial paragraph line, which means that there should not be so-called “hanging” lines.
It is not difficult to make up a continuous text. Note that the design of the initial bands can be of three types, all these are ways of typesetting the text:
- with descent;
- with a descent, but with initials;
- with the title in the form of a "cap".
Which option to choose in the end should be determined by the artist of the publishing house together with the layout designer. Note that the initial can be not only font, but also drawn, it is the capital letter of the large size, which plays the role of the first letter in the initial line. If you make the layout of the text with a book with an internal title, then it is set at the expense of descent in the form of a "header".
Finishing the end bands, you must adhere to the following recommendations that will help make your publication as presentable and selling as possible:
- If there is not enough text on the page, it must be placed in the previous page, or enlarged so that it occupies at least a quarter of the page on the next page. Please note that the text of not only one, but often several paragraphs is subjected to the so-called fitting and forcing, until it is possible to achieve the desired result.
- If there is a lot of text on the end strip, then it should not be shorter than the full by less than 4 lines.
- Do not forget that on the end strips, in certain cases, you can install endings that help to fight off the text the same way for each individual publication.
These are the main ways of typesetting text that can be applied to complex text.
How to place poems in layout
In this article, we will help to understand in detail the organization of typesetting text of any format. For example, if you are faced with the task of composing a poem, you need to know that the poetic text placed inside the main text or in separate strips should be designed in such a way that the poetic strip or any part of it is eventually placed in the middle of the page.
At the same time, do not forget that the poem should be made up as an additional text, that is, have a beat from the main text within no more than one line.
If during the layout of the text with a book in Word you have to transfer part of the poetic text to another strip, then at least two lines must be left on the previous one. Ideally, when transferring a poem, it should be divided into pairs of verses.
If the stanzas of the poetic text are typed in alternation without the use of indents, then they should not be beaten off from each other.
But if the poem is made up in a U-turn, then it should be designed and repelled uniformly. Nowadays, as a program for typesetting text with a book, you can use one of those already listed, or you can use the classic Word text editor, which is, perhaps, on the computer of almost every user.
Dramatic text
Special rules for text layout in Word should be observed if you are going to publish a dramatic work. In this case, it is necessary to pay close attention to some specific, but at the same time very important requirements. For example, the names and surnames of actors must be typed in separate lines, beating off the main text like rubrics.
In this case, the size of the line on which the character names are placed must be a multiple of the size of the main set. If there are remarks in the text that break the words of the characters in a separate line, then they must be beaten from the text by two or four points from the bottom and top.
It is strongly not recommended to end the line with the line with the name of the person acting in the play or remark, transferring the text to another line. It is recommended that the remark be closed with at least two lines. And the replica, which is transferred to another page, must be closed with at least two lines.
It is considered bad form to start a strip with a remark, which is in the speech of one actor. In this case, the remark itself must be turned down in the previous lane.
Layout of tables and formulas
The key points in the organization and the main ways of transforming the layout of the text are discussed in detail and discussed in this article. The main recommendation is that the tables and conclusions from them should be imposed immediately after the text that they illustrate. If for some technical reasons it is not possible to do this, then it is allowed to make them up quite arbitrarily within one turn. For this case, the text gives the corresponding link, which indicates a specific table number.
When placing a table on a strip, close attention should be paid to the format of the strip and its size. When layout tables are contrary, they must be placed on the optical middle of the strip, fighting off the text within the same size line of the font size of the main set, not forgetting, of course, about the rule of reduction.
On the strips of the table can be placed both across and along. In the first case, the table will be read when the page is rotated exactly 90 degrees clockwise. If it turns out that the width of the table is larger than the format of the standard typesetting strip that you use, then it can be placed on a spread across or along, interrupted by the spine of the publication. The main thing is to accurately maintain the size of the break, it must be designed in such a way that the table appears exactly on the spread and is easily read.
Such tables are called oar and are divided into transverse and longitudinal. So, cross-hinged tables are located transversely on two strips, and longitudinally-hinged tables are on two strips along.
According to the format of the rows themselves, longitudinally-spreading tables should always strictly equal the doubled format of the rows of text, provided that each half is increased by one or two pica to ensure an organic exit to the radicular field.
At the same time, the oversized tables in their format should be strictly equal to the height of the publication strip, and ideally, should be slightly smaller. Ultimately, the height of such tables should be equal to twice the format of the lines of the text of the publication, which increases in each of the halves by one or two pica to exit into the radicular field.
There is also the concept of “shredded tables”, which are imposed against. In this case, the width of the table should be close to the format of the set, or there is another option - layout in frill, when the width of the table itself is several units less than the format of the set. From the main text of the table should be beaten at a distance of six to twelve points, from the text placed above, by two to four points, the rest of the bottom beating is determined by the conditions of reduction.
It is important that the layout correctly handle the formulas. They are imposed strictly according to the original markup, and are beaten off from the text above and below so that they differ from the main set as much as possible in the size of the font, observing the conditions of reducibility. Please note that if the formula in your text is preceded by a short ending line of some text, then the formula does not need to be beaten off from above, even partially.
It is not recommended to start the strip with formulas, only by way of rare exception - when transferring formulas. If the formula consists of three lines, then it is forbidden to break them if necessary, hyphenation. When the formula consists of four lines, when transferring from one strip to another, they can be divided strictly in half.
In order to prevent violations of the layout imposition, it is important that when placing formulas in the text, as in the case of tables, it is necessary to calculate how many lines of the main text must be removed in order to organically place the necessary additional text along with all the beats. In this case, the number of lines must be integral, and the text lines in the gap must coincide with the lines of text in the back strip.
Placement of illustrations in the layout of the text
Remember that the location of each illustration should initially be established when marking the original and making the layout. The type of placement of specific illustrations on the strip depends on its format and the format of the illustration itself. There are several main types of accommodation:
- An open layout, with it the illustration is placed strictly on top or bottom of the strip, directly in contact with the text on one or two sides.
- Closed layout. With this method, the illustration is placed inside the main text, touching it with two or even three sides.
- Deaf layout. In this case, the illustration is closed with text on all four sides, the so-called two-sided frill. With this option, illustrations can be located in the fields or with a partial exit to the field.
- The latter option implies that the illustration is so large that it occupies the entire strip, and there is no text at all, except, perhaps, a signature for the illustration itself, if it is required.
Any illustration must be made as close as possible to the text to which it refers. If its width is equal to the dialed band, then it can be installed on top, on the optical middle or bottom of the strip. In the layout of two illustrations contrary, when one is located directly under the other, there should be at least three lines of text between them, not counting the captions for the illustrations themselves. In this case, both such illustrations should be located in the optical middle of the strip.
It is important to note that the rule of reduction in the layout of illustrations contrary to must necessarily be strictly followed. That is, the size of the illustration itself with beats and all the necessary signatures should be a multiple of the size of the main set. From the main text the illustration is beaten off within the limits of one pica.
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Summing up, it should be noted that the height of the illustration itself with beats from the main text and signature should not be a multiple of the font size of the main set. Based on the size of the window, as a result, you can calculate the number of frill lines, that is, lines that are typed in a smaller format and are located on the side of the illustration.